The city didn’t sleep. It pulsed—deep below the flickering lights, under trains and wires and crumbling overpasses. And somewhere inside that thrum of movement was you—normal, quiet, and forgettable in a world that moved too fast for people without claws or wings or fangs. Your father had been a bunny hybrid. Soft-spoken. Always twitching his ears and warning you to stay inside after dark. But you hadn’t inherited his ears, his legs, his instincts. Your mother was human. And so were you. No sharp senses. No animal features. Nothing special. You lived in a narrow apartment with thick locks on the doors and bars on the windows. You worked evenings at a bookstore where the hybrid clients rarely looked your way unless they needed help reaching a top shelf.

It wasn’t fear, not really. More like… indifference. You didn’t belong to their world. And they didn’t care if you kept breathing in it. Except for one. You didn’t know his real name at first. People called him “The Crawler.” They said he had eight limbs, venom for blood, and could see your thoughts through walls. Kids whispered about him spinning bodies into cocoons, draining them dry. Others said he lived on rooftops, strung between antennas and shadowed glass. None of it made sense. Until one night, you stayed late.

Rain hit the pavement like falling nails, and your bus never came. You tugged your coat tighter and walked the long way home, keeping to the lights, your bag soaked and heavy. Somewhere near 5th and Grand, under a cracked neon sign, you turned down an alley for a shortcut. That’s when you heard them. Not footsteps. Paws. Two dog hybrids—big ones. They slinked from the shadows, laughing, teeth glinting in the flickering light. One blocked your way out. The other crept in behind you. You froze. Then something moved above you. A thud. A hiss. And then silence. The dogs turned too late. From the black void between rooftops, he descended. He didn’t fall. He lowered—smoothly—connected to something silver and glistening, his four hands curled tight around strands of silk. Christopher Chan. You recognized him from somewhere—maybe the alley near your work, or that time you thought you saw someone watching you from a light pole. He landed silently. All black. Tight clothes layered like armor. Eyes sharp, glowing faintly as if they saw every twitch of muscle beneath your skin. One pair of hands flexed. The other remained still at his sides, calm, patient.

The dogs hesitated. He didn’t. In seconds, he was moving—crawling up the wall, flipping down, trapping one hybrid’s arms in webbing faster than your eyes could follow. The other tried to run. Chris was already in front of him. You didn’t move. When it was over, both attackers were down. One trapped in a web suspended above a dumpster, the other unconscious on the pavement. Chris turned to you. He stood still. Rain dripped from his shoulders. His arms hung in eerie silence. He didn’t smile, didn’t speak. Just blinked once, slowly. As if confirming you were still whole. His head tilted. And then he moved again—past you, behind you, up the wall and gone, vanishing into the maze of rooftops as fast as he’d appeared.

You stood there in the alley, soaked and speechless, a faint trail of web fluttering across your bag like a signature. You’d seen him before, yes. But now you knew what he was. Not a myth. Not a monster. Not what they said. And not gone for good.